Beth 'Floors' It
Buckled into the GT500, my biggest concern was not hurting anyone, followed closely by not making a total idiot of myself. I’m happy to report neither happened; the closest I came was automatically pushing the gear shift all the way down and to the right in an attempt to back up. That’s obviously not how it works in a six-speed, but I realized my mistake before anything too humiliating had happened.
Once I got moving, I was surprised at how normal it felt — heavier than what I was used to, but not enough to make it strange. I don’t have a lot to compare the experience to, but according to Dave the GT500 is easy to drive for a car that powerful. I’d second that; it wasn’t at all intimidating or difficult. In fact, Dave took it out first, and while I waited my turn the nice people from Ford were kind enough to toss me the keys to the regular Mustang GT they’d brought. I took that one out first, and aside from the GT500’s obvious additional power, the experience wasn’t too different. Handling felt the same to this untrained observer, and the noise level was comparable.
I’d also guess it would have felt less normal had I driven it like you’re really supposed to drive a car like that. I’m sad to tell you the experience was limited to suburban streets at rush hour; I never even got it into fourth gear (thanks for all that indoctrination about obeying the laws of the land, Mom).
But even for someone who isn’t wired to find driving particularly exciting, punching the GT500 as hard as I dared through the first three gears was a rush. The couple of stretches of open road I found were just enough to give me a taste for how much fun it would have been to have had the freedom to really accelerate. What initially felt like a heavy car soon just felt like a powerful one, and while I don’t consider myself anything more than an everyday driver, guiding the GT500 around for 15 minutes made me feel like I was. And I liked it.
-Beth Palmer
Stay tuned for more of Beth and Dave’s drive in the Shelby GT500. For all of their posts click here.
